[RESOLVED] More Efficient Code for Validation

transfield

Hello,
I want to prevent the end user from keying in particular keywords when they query my database. I using the code below which works fine. I want to simplify this code using some sort of wildcard search. I specifically want to prevent people from keying in the following keywords:-
01-
02-
03-
04-
05-
06-
07-
08-
09-
Therefore I'm looking for a wildcard to represent any single character to replace the number 1 to number 9.

Thanks for your advice.

if($_POST['Text_Box_12'] == '03-' or $_POST['Text_Box_12'] == '04-') die('This keyword is disallowed.');

laserlight

One way is to use [man]in_array/man with an array of the disallowed keywords:

if (in_array($_POST['Text_Box_12'],
	array('01-', '02-', '03-', '04-', '05-', '06-', '07-', '08-', '09-')))
	die('This keyword is disallowed.');

Another way is to use a regular expression, since the format of your disallowed keywords follows a regular pattern:

if (preg_match('/^0\d\-$/', $_POST['Text_Box_12']))
	die('This keyword is disallowed.');

transfield

Thanks a lot, laserlight. Excellent code & easy to understand :-)

I appreciate your help on this matter.